Todd Alexander Postol in New York Newsday, April 5, 1999:

Given the distances between houses due to generous dimensions of their lawns, homeowners often fail to become acquainted with people on their own street. Parents with young children travel across multiple zip codes to arrange play dates with friends from day care. Teenagers imprisoned behind family lawn "moats" wait patiently for the day when they may escape by obtaining drivers' licenses. In many suburban areas the institutions that define a healthy civic life—churches, bookstores, post offices—are absent. We are in danger of becoming a virtual community, composed of citizens who see each other only when we go outside to mow our lawns...

Given this, what can be done to encourage a greater sense of community life on Long Island? Sidewalks and public flower gardens would help, but little substantive change can occur until we alter the ground rules controlling the size, shape, and configuration of residential properties. We need to stop producing conventional housing developments with jumbo lawn spreads and start again to build places where people can walk to bakeries and barbershops. This has already begun to happen in other parts of the country, where new towns like Kentlands, Md., and Harbortown, Tenn., have rejected suburban lawn designs. The front walk leads to sidewalk; the front door leads to the street. In Seaside, Fla., turf grass lawns have been outlawed altogether in favor of compact magnolia and beach rosemary.

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